Thursday, May 22, 2014

As usual, posts about Ukraine, why nuclear plants cost so much, the Kremlin may be watching you on Facebook, and more at Nuclear Diner.

Could it be possible that we are coming to a time when we discuss some of the issues we need to discuss? The Atlantic has two impressive articles on two issues: Ta-Nehisi Coates on reparations for black Americans and Mary Adkins on rape. Lt. Col. Robert Bateman discusses the encroachment of fundamentalist Christianity on the military. He's not that specific, but that's what he's talking about. I've been getting fed up lately with our inability to resist the worst of what our society has to offer in these areas, and I hope we're getting to a turning point.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

National Geographic has a long article on apples and their birthplace in northeastern Kazakhstan. They are ancestral to all the apples we know, and they are endangered. A few excerpts:

One of these threatened species, Malus sieversii—a wild apple that Newton describes as "small but highly colored with a very nice sweet flavor"—is one of the key ancestors of all cultivated apples grown and eaten around the world. So rich and unique is this species, Newton says, that on one wild apple tree, "you can see more variation in apple form than you see in the entire cultivated apple crop in Britain. You can get variation in fruit size, shape, color, flavor, even within the tree, and certainly from tree to tree."

The Latin noun malus can mean either "apple" or "evil," which is probably why the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" in the Garden of Eden is often depicted as an apple tree, even though the biblical book of Genesis does not say what sort of fruit tree it is.

"All of the apples that we're eating today and cultivating originate from this area," Newton says. "So if we want to add genetic variation to our crops to cope with new pests or climate change, then the genetic resource is these forests. It's true for apples, apricots, peaches, walnuts, pears. In terms of a wild genetic resource for cultivated fruit trees, there's nothing like it on the planet."

Sunday, May 11, 2014

The level and tone of propaganda coming out of Russia today
vastly exceed anything I recall from the Soviet Union. A quick look at the
absurd tweets from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (@MFA_Russia)
and the
bullying by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin (@DRogozin) should convince anyone. They
are far from alone; RT (formerly Russia Today) is going hot and heavy. And no,
I don’t think I’ll link to it.

An analysis of what Edward Snowden may have had access to at the NSA. Of course, he could have hacked into other partitions, but from the material that has been released, it looks like he didn't. The NSA is probably even more aware of this. This analysis seems to show that their information compartmentalization works better than some are saying.

Iran briefs UN nuclear agency on detonators. This would be a briefing on the exploding bridgewire detonators that Iran has researched. They are at issue because they are essential for nuclear weapons. Iran's willingness to discuss them is a positive sign, although how positive depends on how much they have included in the briefing.